The business newspaper said its analysis of 60 big American companies had found that they had collectively parked a total of $166 billion offshore last year.

That shielded more than 40 percent of their annual profits from U.S. taxes, the report said.

Each of the 60 companies chosen for the analysis had held at least $5 billion offshore in 2011, according to The Journal.

The list included Abbott Laboratories, whose store of untaxed overseas earnings rose by $8.1 billion, to $40 billion, the paper said. The increase exceeded the pharmaceutical maker's net income of $6 billion.